Alright, first, let me just say that one of my pet peeves is the misuse of the word, ironic. So let’s just review quickly.
It is not, as Alanis Morissette would have us believe, "like rain on your wedding day." That’s just bad luck, and probably poor planning. It’s also not "a free ride" when one has "already paid."
It is, says that great sage, Merriam-Webster:
3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play —called also dramatic irony, tragic irony
Now, this is ironic – Sarah Palin, of all people, seems to have used "ironic" correctly, when she said in Calgary recently:
The vocal opponent of health care reform in the U.S. steered largely clear of the topic except to reveal a tidbit about her life growing up not far from Whitehorse.
"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," she said. "And I think now, isn’t that ironic."
Yes, Sarah, yes it is. Because you, on stage, don’t get that we, the audience, know that your border-jumping for medicine does not square with your hatred of health care reform, which would give Americans access to the same kind of quality care our neighbors to the north enjoy.
Because while you and yours are stopping any attempt to keep insurance giants from using Americans as their personal profit machines, you’re also pointing north with derision, as though affordable medicine (which you no doubt benefitted from as a child) and the guarantee that falling ill or having an accidents doesn’t equal financial ruin is a bad thing.
It is ironic, and as the Canadian pop queen Morissette would add, "A little too ironic."